


Shut Up and Kiss Me Again

by WhyIsItAlwaysMonday



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, DUM-E is a good bro, Fluff, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Throwing Civil War out the window, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 22:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyIsItAlwaysMonday/pseuds/WhyIsItAlwaysMonday
Summary: Tony works, Steve draws, and Dum-E keeps trying to get them together. Literally just some post-Ultron Stony fluff.





	Shut Up and Kiss Me Again

**Author's Note:**

> So basically after Ultron, Tony stays with the team and Civil War never happens.
> 
> We'll be back with our regularly scheduled Spidey-fic update hopefully later this week (screw real life keeping me from updating my long-fic!)

One year after Ultron, and Steve was _ still here _. Tony wandered to the kitchen and instantly noted the coffee aroma wafting over him. 

“Saved you some,” Steve called from the living room, curled into the corner of the sofa with his sketchpad.

“Thanks, Cap,” Tony replied as he poured himself a mug.

_ Why are you still here? _ he thought, narrowing his eyes at the figure sitting so comfortably on _ his _ couch. Clint had gone back to… whatever it was Clint did. Roosting in a loft somewhere, probably, Tony figured, maybe sitting on an egg. Is that what hawks did? Banner was still M.I.A., and Romanoff had returned to Sokovia undercover to look for leads. Thor had long since returned to Asgard; Wilson returning to his own home a few months later, though he still visited Steve at least weekly. Rhodey still visited, too, but stayed busy with “Official Air Force business,” whatever bullshit propaganda that was. Barnes was chilling out - quite literally - in Wakanda, after borders became more open under the new leadership of King T’Challa. Vision and Wanda had moved to Europe - mostly off-grid, but not unreachable. Everyone had gone back to business-as-fucking-usual. Everyone except for Steve. Stubborn asshole had made himself _ very _comfortable in the compound and - very annoyingly - trailed after him with those big, baby blue eyes wherever he went, like some sort of lost puppy.

“Do you ever think about moving back to Brooklyn?” Tony asked. “I hear there’s a roast beef sandwich joint that’s been around more than 75 years - almost as long as you!” 

“Huh?” Steve looked up from his drawing, eyes taking a minute to refocus.

“Don’t you ever think about moving back?” Tony repeated as he sat across from Steve in a comfortable armchair, casually resting a foot on his knee as he sipped his coffee.

Steve pulled his sketchpad to his chest. “To Brooklyn? I mean, yeah, I’ve thought about it.” His expression sombered. “There’s nothing there for me now, though. No family. No ties. Bucky’s in…” Steve trailed off and his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Tony, if you want me to move out, just say the word. I don’t mean to impose…” A blush colored Steve’s neck and he shifted his eyes away. “I just… I don’t really belong anywhere, anymore.” He chewed his bottom lip, blush rising to his cheeks. 

“Hey, Capsicle, it’s fine. I just don’t want you feeling obligated to stay on my behalf. Gotta watch out for that moral compass of yours, ya know,” Tony laughed.

Steve smiled, meeting his eyes. “Thanks, Tony. Really. If you’re sure you don’t mind… I like it here. With you.” 

Tony blinked. “Whelp, anyway, I’m gonna head down to the lab,” he said with a start, rising from the chair. 

He almost reached the door before Steve asked, “Mind if I come with you?” Like he did every. damn. day. for the past two months.

“You know the drill,” Tony said without turning around, waving his hand in a general “this covers all the things we’ve talked about” kind of way. 

“Don’t touch anything unless you tell me to, don’t complain about the music, and don’t interrupt the ‘genius flow of ideas’?” 

“And the recent addition?” Tony asked as he pressed the down button on the elevator.

“Don’t sneak up on you while you’re working?”

“Got it in one!”

“Again, I didn’t think I was being sneaky!”

“I was working! You can’t expect me to listen for your big supersoldier feet when I’m focused on things that are _ actually important.” _

“Like quantum physics?”

“Like quantum physics.”

\---

“Like quantum physics.”

Steve rolled his eyes with a sigh as the elevator dinged. He dropped himself onto the couch that had “magically appeared” in the lab after the first three days he’d followed Tony down, perching himself on a stool, sketchbook in hand. He’d had to get up to stretch every half hour or so, back cracking painfully. Tony adamantly refused to address that the couch had definitely showed up because Steve insisted on coming to the lab, and Steve adamantly refused to address how flattered he was - not that Tony would spend money on him; money was inconsequential when you were Tony Stark. But that Tony _ noticed _and created a solution without being asked; that meant something. 

Tony tinkered and blabbered about this creation or that, and Steve sketched. Sketched Tony as he drew up plans for a new suit, sketched Tony as he screwed together nuts and bolts with meticulous precision, sketched Tony as he admonished one of the bots for bringing him the wrong kind of wrench. He loved the hard lines of his face, the muscles you could just notice if his tee shirt clung the right way, the curvier lines of his…

“Hey, Capsicle, since Dum-E here doesn’t seem to know the difference between a socket wrench and a monkey wrench, mind giving a guy a hand?”

Steve shook his head to clear his thoughts and wandered over, carefully closing his sketchbook and resting it on the counter. He was pretty sure he remembered where Tony had told him he kept his… ah, there they were!

“What size _ socket _wrench do you need?”

“⅜. It’s always ⅜.”

Steve grabbed it. “You see, Dum-E, _ this _is a socket wrench” he added, waving it in the bot’s direction. The bot beeped and ran over his foot. “Ouch!”

“Dum-E, that is _ not _how we treat guests!”

The bot beeped again.

“I don’t care that you feel replaced; at least the man know his wrenches!” 

Dum-E backed up toward the counter, making himself smaller, letting out a sad sounding boop.

Steve handed Tony the wrench with a smile. He heard Dum-E back into the counter with a crash, and Steve whirled on his heel. 

His heart stopped. 

His sketchbook clattered to the floor along with assorted tools and scrap metal. Tony bent down, arm reaching for the book.

“No!” Steve said forcefully, elbowing Tony aside and bending over in a rush, scooping the book into his arms and cradling it to his chest. As he rose, Tony’s bewildered eyes met his, and Steve cleared his throat, which suddenly felt far too dry. “Um, I’ve got it. See? All good.” 

He could feel the heat rising to his cheeks and he turned on his heel back toward the couch. He could feel Tony’s gaze burning a hole in his back and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Steve settled his breathing, then carefully sat back into the couch as nonchalantly as he could, which probably looked _ very _ chalant if he was being honest. He flipped back to his current drawing - Tony, elbow resting on his work table, the lines of his face drawn together in thought. It was shaping up to be one of Steve’s favorites. He still needed to finish the eyes, though. Every time he tried, the eyes on the page just didn’t capture that _ intelligence, _ that _ vitality _ in the same way.

\---

Tony glanced up from his work to see Steve frowning intently at his drawing, erasing furiously, then flipping his pencil and sketching again. A pause. Another frown. More erasing. Steve repeated this step another four times as Tony watched, interest piqued. Finally, he abandoned his project and sauntered over to the couch.

“Watcha workin’ on there, Rogers?”

Steve’s breath hitched and he snapped the sketchbook shut.

“What, don’t like people sneaking up on you? I thought your supersoldier-ness took care of that.”

“I was concentrating,” Steve deadpanned.

“Ah-hah!” Tony pointed at Steve’s chest. “So it does go both ways!”

Steve narrowed his eyes, then busted out into a shit-eating grin, swinging his legs aside to make room for Tony on the couch.

“But seriously, I wanna know what you’re working on,” he said as he sat. “Must be real serious with all that frowning you’re doing.”

“There’s just a part I can’t get quite right.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

“But maybe I could help, give you a fresh perspective and all that.”

“My sketchbook is private, Tony.”

“Then I wouldn’t leave it lying around if I were you. _ The bots _like to get into things,” Tony said with a wink.

“Oh, I know,” Steve smirked. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “That’s why I don’t leave it where _ the bots _can find it.” 

Tony laughed. “What, you got nudes of your boy Barnes in there or something?”

Steve recoiled, grin disappearing. “I’ve drawn Bucky before, but not nude, and we’re not like that.” 

“Could’ve fooled me, with all that ‘moving heaven and Earth’ thing to bring him back.”

“He’s been on my side since we were little kids. He was on my side when no one else was. It was the least I could do in return.”

Tony smiled at Steve, selfless as always. “You’re a good man, Cap.” He patted Steve’s knee, and felt Steve freeze under his touch. Tony yanked his hand away and picked at his suddenly-very-interesting cuticles. “Not like me. I see a good thing, I wanna protect it, and then I smother it. I did it with Pepper... and I did it with the whole fucking Earth with Ultron.” He ripped at a loose piece of skin with his teeth.

“You might’ve been misguided, but your heart was in the right place, Tony. If you just talk to us - talk to _ me _\- next time, Ultron won’t happen again.”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut as shame washed over him. He felt a strong, warm hand grab his chin and gently pull it to the side, and his breath hitched. He opened his eyes and was staring right into Steve’s piercing blue gaze.

“Tony. Ultron might’ve been your fault, but you weren’t trying to hurt anyone. I don’t blame you. And we stopped it. Together. It doesn’t have to happen again. I… I trust you to make the right call, next time. With or without me.” 

Tony drew in a breath, and suddenly it felt like there wasn’t enough air. 

“Good talk, Capsicle,” he said as he pushed up from the couch. “Anyway, I’ve got schematics to run and science-y voodoo to do…” his voice broke and jumped an octave, “so feel free to go for a run or something, ‘cause it’s about to get real boring in here.”

And bless Steve’s selfless, heroic heart, that he took the hint (and, disappointingly, his sketchbook) and left without a word, and Tony cried into his hands for a solid half hour before Dum-E butted his leg and offered a glass of water, which Tony took, drank straight down, and then cried some more.

\---

Steve didn’t follow Tony to the lab anymore, after that. He’d pushed too far, and now he offered the man space and thanked whatever God he might still believe in (none, potentially, he was still figuring that out) that Tony hadn’t booted him out of the compound. He had lunch with Sam, he went for runs, he even hopped on a plane to Wakanda for a few days. He checked in with Nat and told her he was sorry she hadn’t found any leads on Bruce’s whereabouts. He was glad when she said she planned to return sometime next week to regroup.

He saw Tony in the mornings and, since Steve still got up with the sun, he always made sure there was plenty of coffee left over. Sometimes Tony would reappear in the evenings with some sort of takeout, always with enough to share, and even though they didn’t share many words beyond what they did that day, Steve still lived for the quiet comradery of dinners together. When Tony didn’t make an appearance though, Happy or the bots always brought Steve something, and his heart clenched at Tony’s thoughtfulness. What’s more, he seemed to remember exactly what dishes Steve liked, and would only bring something new when the two of them ate together.

After a month of avoiding the topic, Steve couldn’t hold it in any longer. Tony shoveled pad thai into his mouth and Steve sucked in a breath.

“Tony, I’m sorry. I pushed too far and I shouldn’t have acted like you need to talk to me about -”

“Don’t,” Tony cut him off.

Steve paused with his mouth open.

“First off, you were right. I _ should _talk to someone if I’m doing anything like that again, which also I definitely shouldn’t do anyway. And why not you? I’m pessimistic and egotistical and you’re a selfless optimist. We balance each other out.”

Steve started to reply, but Tony held up a finger.

“And secondly, you know you’re still allowed in the lab, right? ‘Cause I haven’t seen you down there in over a month, and Dum-E keeps bringing me monkey wrenches, and frankly I’m real over getting my own damn wrenches.”

Steve cracked a smile. “I’d like that, Tony. Tomorrow?”

“Why not tonight?” Tony asked, clasping his hands together, eyes bright. “I’m in the middle of a logistical breakthrough with the suit’s underwater capabilities, and this could be big, like, big big. Like, let’s go explore the ruins of the Titanic and the depths of the ocean big. I just need to increase the jets’ power by 20%, and then account for the pressurization of...” 

“Okay I get it!” Steve threw his hands up with a grin. “It’s a big deal and we’re going now and I might as well forget about getting any sleep tonight. Got it.”

\---

Tony was actually kinda far from achieving said logistical breakthrough, but his heart felt lighter than it had in a month. Every time he had looked up and not seen Steve sketching away in his book, he’d felt a twinge of disappointment, then a wave of guilt that Steve had spoken words of forgiveness and understanding and he’d pushed him away. Typical Tony Stark, always pushing away people who actually might give a damn about him. And here Steve was, offering his easy companionship without asking for an explanation, and in fact trying to apologize to _ Tony _. Tony Stark definitely did not deserve Steve Rogers.

He looked up from his schematics (he _ was _ actually working on the suit’s deep diving abilities, that part was true), and smiled at the sight of Steve curled contentedly in the couch, legs draped casually over the arm, lost in his drawings. Tony was actually really, really glad that out of everyone, Steve had stayed. When he wasn’t being a stubborn asshole, he was actually pretty easy to get along with, and smarter than Tony had ever given him credit for; and when he was being an asshole, he could take it just as well as he could give it. 

Steve looked up and his eyes widened when he caught Tony staring. He tipped his head and his eyes narrowed, lips slightly parted, but he didn’t look away. Tony’s heart beat in his ears, but he didn’t look away. After a few breaths, Steve dropped his eyes to his sketchbook, flipped the page, and began drawing furiously, pencil practically flying over the page. Tony turned back to his work and wondered what idea had suddenly struck Steve with such fervor. 

He set to work arranging pieces for the new water jets that he’d house in the boots of the suit. “Damn it,” he swore under his breath. “Hey, Steve, could you grab me a ⅜ wrench? It seems another one has gone _ mysteriously missing.” _ He shot a glare in Dum-E’s direction, who beeped innocently and did his best impression of a shrug.

Steve tucked his sketchpad under his arm and went to grab the requested item. Tony took it without looking up, then heard an “Oof!” and looked up just in time to see Steve’s sketchpad hit the floor, Dum-E wheeling back, and Steve rubbing his leg with a wince.

“Dum-E, I’ve told you before, that is not how…” Tony trailed off as his eyes landed on the sketchbook, open to an incomplete but incredibly accurate drawing of himself staring back at him from the page. He looked up. Steve met his eyes and gulped visibly, blushing hard.

Tony bent and picked up the sketchbook, flipping back through it. Here and there were pictures of Nat, Wilson, Bucky, even Shuri from Wakanda. A few of flowers and trees and views from the compound. One of Dum-E in his dumb party hat. But mostly there was just… him. Tony. Working. Thinking. Napping in the armchair. Sipping a coffee. He’d never seen himself depicted with such care and… beauty.

“Steve,” he swallowed thickly. “These are… really good.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair self-consciously, heart pounding furiously in his chest. “I like this one a lot.” He held up the book to a drawing of him laughing next to a very serious-looking Rhodey. Steve chewed his bottom lip, not meeting his eyes. 

“You… you like them?”

“Like them? Of course I like them; they’re amazing!”

Steve’s eyelids fluttered shut and he took a breath before meeting Tony’s eyes.

“You don’t mind that I’ve been drawing you?”

“Rogers, if you wanted a model, you could’ve just asked!” Tony spread his arms wide. “Why not add that to the list? Billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist, _ model for renowned artist Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America…” _

“I like drawing you,” Steve said in a rush.

Tony blinked at him.

“I, er… I’m not short on things to draw, Tony.” Steve drew closer, into Tony’s space. “I just like drawing you. I like… you. I like being around you and drawing you and…” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, cheeks reddening further. “I’m sorry, I…” 

Tony snatched Steve’s wrist as he tried to turn away. “I’m not that close to a breakthrough with the suit,” he blurted out. Steve turned back, raising an eyebrow. Tony kept speaking in a rush. “I actually just kinda wanted you around ‘cause I missed having you down here, and I pushed you away like I do everyone I care about or who cares about me and…” he gulped in a big rush of air, “did you say you liked me, Rogers?”

Steve’s eyes widened. He blinked once, slowly, then squared his shoulders and met Tony’s eyes determinedly. “Yes. Yes I did.”

A slow smile spread across Tony’s face. “You do realize that dating Tony Stark can be exceedingly frustrating? Or so I’ve been told.”

Steve smirked. “I’ve been told that Steve Rogers is a bit of an asshole.”

“You know Romanoff would never let anyone forget if she found out Captain America was banging Iron Man.”

Steve tipped his head, tone serious. “That’s not what I’m after here, Tony.”

Tony narrowed his eyes with a smirk.

Steve shrugged innocently. “That’s not _ all _I’m after?”

“Good, me neither. I am far too old for sleeping around, but I’m also not nearly old enough to have your straight-and-narrow moral sensibilities, Captain.” 

Steve grabbed Tony’s waist with strong hands and pulled him against him, and _ damn _if that supersoldier strength wasn’t an instant turn on. Tony peered up into Steve’s baby blues. 

“What do you want, Steve?”

“I really like you, Tony,” he replied earnestly. “Let’s start with this…”

Steve put his mouth gingerly on Tony’s, and Tony drew in a sharp breath through his nose, fluttering his eyelids closed. The kiss was short and chaste, Steve pulling away until just their noses were touching. 

“... and we’ll see where we go from there,” Steve finished with a smirk.

Tony threaded his hands behind Steve’s neck and pushed their foreheads together.

“Shut up and kiss me again,” he demanded.

And he did.


End file.
